"The question is how best to get out of the mess.

What's the next move, anyway ?" The Professor glanced towards the sun and took a small compass from his pocket.

He pointed across the desert.
"That's exactly our route," he said, "but I reckon we still must be two days from the Mongars, and how we are going to get there ourselves, much more get the women there, without camels, I don't know.

There are no wells, and I don't believe those fellows have left us a single tin of water." "Any chance of falling in with a caravan ?" Quest enquired.
"Not one in a hundred," the Professor replied gloomily.

"If we were only this short distance out of Port Said, and on one of the recognised trade routes, we should probably meet half-a-dozen before mid-day.